Scott and Johanna Hongell-Darsee

Our performances have been described as magical, inspiring, haunting, mesmerizing.

Here are a few quotes:


"What to praise first? Johanna’s lovely alto and her storytelling skill? Scott’s evocative guitars? Their arrangements that mold ancient melodies to modern ears? The performances have a stylized, almost ritual quality, as the Hongell-Darsees summon ancient characters from the depths of our collective unconscious and bid you take leave of the modern world and join your ancestors, huddled together in a hut around a fire as the storyteller makes the hair on your arms stand straight up." (Mel Minter, Musically Speaking, Albuquerque, NM) - Scott and Johanna Hongell-Darsee

The repertoire of Johanna Hongell-Darsee and Scott Darsee includes the most popular songs of all time, though few of them have ever appeared on a Billboard chart. Their longevity and their near universal presence around the globe, however, attest to their
appeal. On The Wandering Ballad, available via iTunes, CD Baby, and Amazon, the duo presents ballads that have formed the heart of their last three live productions. Some of the tunes were first written down in the 12th
century, by which time some of them had already traveled halfway around the world, accreting scores of verses from different cultures and attaching local melodies along the way.

The album presents songs in English, French, Finnish, and Swedish, in spare and beautiful arrangements that conjure a medieval atmosphere. Modern and ancient instruments weave the spell, with Hongell-Darsee on vocals, flute, clarinet, härjedalspipa (Scandinavian wooden
whistle) and Darsee on acoustic and electric guitars and bass, with assistance from Christopher A. Carlson on violin and octave violin, Sharon Berman on recorders, and Juan Wijngaard on
hurdy-gurdy. At the CD release party, presented by AMP Concerts at the Outpost this Friday, these artists will be joined by Larry Otis on guitar and saxophone and Tej Bhavsar on sitar.


Ancient stories
On a more or less annual basis, the duo creates a live production around a collection of
similarly themed ballads. Since relocating to New Mexico from Scandinavia in 2001, they’ve
performed over 300 times at festivals, theaters, arts councils, colleges, schools, libraries, and
radio stations around the country.

For each project, says Hongell-Darsee, she finds a medieval ballad that has variants across a
variety of places around the world. “I research the story behind it,” she says. “Sometimes it’s very clear. Sometimes you have to do a bit of research back into legend or myths or folk tales to find the common thread. Then, we have basically told these stories and used these ballads to tell the story.”

Hongell-Darsee fronts the duo in their multimedia live presentations, singing, playing a variety of instruments, masking, dancing, and storytelling. Born into a Swedish-speaking minority on an island off the coast of Finland, she studied mime and theater in Paris and Indian classical dance in India, led a dance and theater company in Malmo, Sweden, and performed across Europe and in the United States. - Mel Minter

See Link - Albuquerque Journal

See link - Albuquerque The Magazine, March 2013

See Link - Albuquerque Journal